Social policy and human geography are intimately intertwined yet frequently disconnected fields. Whilst social policies are always conceived, implemented and experienced in and through geography, the role of place in social policy scholarship and practice is frequently overlooked. Bringing together experts from both fields, this collection illuminates the myriad of ways that human geography offers rich insights conceptually, empirically and methodologically into the neglected spatialities of policy scholarship, practice and experience. By building the necessary bridges towards a spatial social policy, this book enables the enhanced design, performance and understanding of social policies once properly rooted in their multiple spatialities.

Social policy and human geography are intimately intertwined yet frequently disconnected fields. Whilst social policies are always conceived, implemented and experienced in and through geography, the role of place in social policy scholarship and practice is frequently overlooked. Bringing together experts from both fields, this collection illuminates the myriad of ways that human geography offers rich insights conceptually, empirically and methodologically into the neglected spatialities of policy scholarship, practice and experience. By building the necessary bridges towards a spatial social policy, this book enables the enhanced design, performance and understanding of social policies once properly rooted in their multiple spatialities.

What is the relationship between how cities work and what cities mean? Spatial Cultures: Towards a New Social Morphology of Cities Past and Present announces an innovative research agenda for urban studies in which themes and methods from urban history, social theory and built environment research are brought into dialogue across disciplinary and chronological boundaries. The collection confronts the recurrent epistemological impasse that arises between research focussing on the description of material built environments and that which is concerned primarily with the people who inhabit, govern and write about cities past and present. A reluctance to engage substantively with this issue has been detrimental to scholarly efforts to understand the urban built environment as a meaningful agent of human social experience. Drawing on a wide range of historical and contemporary urban case studies, as well as a selection of theoretical and methodological reflections, the contributions to this volume seek to historically, geographically and architecturally contextualize diverse spatial practices including movement, encounter, play, procession and neighbourhood. The aim is to challenge their tacit treatment as universal categories in much writing on cities and to propose alternative research possibilities with implications as much for urban design thinking as for history and the social sciences.

'Towards Enabling Geographies' brings together leading scholars to showcase the 'second wave' of geographical studies concerned with disability and embodied differences. The book demonstrates the value of a spatial conceptualization of disability and disablement, whilst examining how this conceptualization can be further developed and refined.

Discussing the ongoing and future challenges of EU Cohesion Policy, this book critically addresses the economic, social and territorial challenges at the heart of the EU’s policy. It identifies the multifaceted and dynamic nature of the policy as well as the cohesions goal interlinkage with other policies and considers unresolved questions of strategic importance in territorial governance, urban and regional inequalities, and social aspects and wellbeing.

Geographies of disability have become a key research priority for many disability scholars and geographers. This edited collection, incorporating the work of leading international disability researchers, seeks to expand the current geographical frame operating within the realm of disability. Providing a critical and comprehensive examination of disability and spatial processes of exclusion and inclusion for disabled people, the book uniquely brings together insights from disability studies, spatial geographies and social policy with the purpose of exploring how spatial factors shape, limit or enhance policy towards, and the experiences of, disabled people. Divided into two parts, the first section explores the key concepts to have emerged within the field of disability geographies, and their relationship to new policy regimes. New and emerging concepts within the field are critically explored for their significance in conceptually framing disability. The second section provides an in-depth examination of disabled people’s experience of changing landscapes within the onset of emerging disability policy regimes. It deals with how the various actors and stakeholders, such as governments, social care agencies, families and disabled people traverse these landscapes under the new conditions laid out by changing policy regimes. Crucially, the chapters examine the lived meaning of changing spatial relations for disabled people. Grounded in recent empirical research, and with a global focus, each of the chapters reveal how social policy domains are challenged or undermined by the spatial realities faced by disabled people, and expands existing understandings of disability. In turn, the book supports readers to grasp future policy directions and processes that enable disabled people's choices, rights and participation. This important work will be invaluable reading for students and researchers involved in disability, geography and social policy.

This book reports on the latest, cutting-edge scholarship on integrating social network and spatial analyses in the built environment. It sheds light on conceptualization and Implementation of such integration, integration for intra-city level analysis, as well as integration for inter-city level analysis. It explores the use of new data sources concerning human and urban dynamics and provides a discussion of how social network and spatial analyses could be synthesized for a more nuanced understanding of the built environment. As such this book will be a valuable resource for scholars focusing on city-related networks in a number of ‘urban’ disciplines, including but not limited to urban geography, urban informatics, urban planning, urban sociology, and urban studies.

Travelling through various historical and geographical contexts, Social Imaginaries of Space explores diverse forms of spatiality, examining the interconnections which shape different social collectives. Proposing a theory on how space is intrinsically linked to the making of societies, this book examines the history of the spatiality of modern states and nations and the social collectives of Western modernity in a contemporary light.

Public Policy Analytics: Code & Context for Data Science in Government teaches readers how to address complex public policy problems with data and analytics using reproducible methods in R. Each of the eight chapters provides a detailed case study, showing readers: how to develop exploratory indicators; understand ‘spatial process’ and develop spatial analytics; how to develop ‘useful’ predictive analytics; how to convey these outputs to non-technical decision-makers through the medium of data visualization; and why, ultimately, data science and ‘Planning’ are one and the same. A graduate-level introduction to data science, this book will appeal to researchers and data scientists at the intersection of data analytics and public policy, as well as readers who wish to understand how algorithms will affect the future of government.

The application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to issues in history is among the most exciting developments in both digital and spatial humanities. Describing a wide variety of applications, the essays in this volume highlight the methodological and substantive implications of a spatial approach to history. They illustrate how the use of GIS is changing our understanding of the geographies of the past and has become the basis for new ways to study history. Contributors focus on current developments in the use of historical sources and explore the insights gained by applying GIS to develop historiography. Toward Spatial Humanities is a compelling demonstration of how GIS can contribute to our historical understanding.